Global Climate Change: The Media

The Southern Ocean, the body of water surrounding Antarctica, is a key region in determining global climate. Recent studies show that the Southern Ocean is undergoing an alarming warming trend that may affect climates in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. What is the Antarctic telling us about our future? In the north, the Arctic also is changing in dramatic and disturbing ways with giant lakes replacing what used to be ice fields. Are the polar areas of our earth especially sensitive? If so, do they now serve as an early warning system for catastrophic change? There is a long-standing and pervasive myth that human input is local not global. Perhaps damage to the earth's polar areas is finally proving just how wrong this type of thinking is.